Devotional Messages

DEVOTIONAL MESSAGE

Ecclesiastes 1:7 – All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they continue to flow.  (NRSV)

Sometimes it’s good to poke around in the corners of scripture we don’t visit very often.  Most of us are familiar with the part of Ecclesiastes that tells us there’s a time for every matter under heaven.  But this little gem is from a couple chapters earlier and much less well known.  As a book, Ecclesiastes is fairly mysterious and more than a little bit cranky.  But it’s also pretty poetic, as this verse shows.

Being the modern people that we are, with at least a cursory understanding of the water cycle, the idea that all the planet’s water should end up in the ocean, where it keeps flowing may seem silly.  On the other hand, it could make us more appreciative of the miracle of that very water cycle and all the beauty it provides as side-effects.

More creatively, this ocean metaphor can help us comprehend many aspects of our faith.  The cup of God’s mercy, which we share again and again every week at Christ’s table, never runs dry.  The love of God, which is continually pouring out upon us, is never exhausted.  Conversely, our need for God’s love is never fully satiated.  We continue to need that life-giving water, and it keeps flowing.

We might also apply this metaphor to our human lives.  We’ve been told countless times that “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”  And yet, we still get anxious when things are done differently than we’re used to.  We know that over time, the path of a stream may shift and bend, but the destination remains the same.  What if we could apply that same knowledge to our lives, to our faith, to our shared faith life?  Can we learn to trust that our faith is part of a cycle as timeless as the waters, one whose destination is always the everlasting arms of God?